LWW Journals - Beginning with A



Episode 20: Nimet Adam Au.D.Duration: 34:04 minutes?MAIN SHOW00:05?D' Anne Rudden:? Full disclosure, along with being an audiologist. I am also a yoga teacher.? You may think that this primarily involves guiding people into a bunch of pretzel-like postures, but truth be told, the practice of yoga has taken me thousands of miles off my mat and into the heart of service.Seva is a word not unfamiliar to yoga teachers.? It is translated from Sanskrit to mean "selfless service" or "work performed without any thought of reward or repayment."? What Seva asks us to do is to serve others with no expectation of outcome.But, a completely selfless good deed is a bit of a challenge, right? Enter intention. If your intention is to do good for a reward, it isn't selfless. It is attached to a result or outcome. If your intention is to do good and be of service with love and integrity and genuinely help with no attachment to the outcome, you're on the right track. Essentially, selfless service involves acting kindly while wearing a cloak of invisibility.?Gratitude for your ability to be of service and pleased with the result is different from doing the work or service for the outcome. In fact, Ram Dass said, "helping out is not some special skill. It is not the domain of rare individuals. It is not confined to a single part of our lives. We simply heed the call of that natural impulse within and follow it where it leads us".?On the podcast today, I want to introduce you to a truly selfless servant for good in this world.?Dr. Nimet Adam is an audiologist and owner of Hearing Partners of South Florida.? She is committed to using her professional talent to help refugee children hear again. As a Board Member and Humanitarian Committee Chairperson of Entheos Audiology Cooperative, Dr. Adam has organized and participated in numerous mission trips to treat refugees with hearing loss.In addition to her work in these emerging countries, Dr. Adam and her team train the local nurses and health care workers to carry on this invaluable work. They are trained to clean the devices, troubleshoot, and are given resources for auditory training and rehabilitation therapy. Supplies are also provided to the local teams so that ongoing follow-up can be done until the team can return the following year. She has also forged an alliance with the University of Jordan, establishing a program for telemedicine and training.Being a refugee from Uganda herself, she is moved by the plight of refugees. Asked how she feels about her humanitarian work, Dr. Adam states, "I consider it a great privilege and gift to be given the opportunity to use my craft to help those that are in such great need. I have always loved being an Audiologist, but humanitarian work will be my life's passion, and I hope to be able to bring awareness of the need for hearing healthcare throughout the world."Before we jump in, I want to be sure to disclose that I am a member of Entheos AudiologyCooperative, joining in 2019. I was so hopeful to travel on a mission with you this year, but that has been postponed to 2021 due to COVID-19.?Dr. Adam, I am honored to talk with you today and learn more about your work in the world. It is great to have you here and an honor.04:07?Dr. Nimet Adam: Thank you D'Anne, I am delighted to be here to talk to you, and thank you for that kind introduction.?04:14?D' Anne Rudden: When I learned that you were a refugee yourself, some of what you do in the world made sense.? How did you get involved in the profession of Audiology and, more specifically, this path to humanitarian work??04:46?Dr. Nimet Adam:? I was a big reader when I was young, and I came across the story of Helen Keller. Since the age of twelve, I knew I wanted to work with the population. I wanted to be a speech pathologist.? Like many other audiologists, I got into the course work and realized I enjoyed Audiology. That is how my journey began.?I have worked for eight years as an audiologist in a hospital setting.? In 1999, I opened my private practice. In 2016, I met Laura Stewart, the CEO of Entheos.? She was music to my ears, she was telling me what I had dreamt of doing for a long time, and it was humanitarian work.? I have been doing it ever since we have helped thousands of patients, both international and local.??06:02?D' Anne Rudden:? Talk about how it works through Entheos both the things that are happening abroad and some places you are having an impact and how it works locally???06:22?Dr. Nimet Adam:? We partner with organizations, government entities in different countries.? We never go into a country on our own; we always partner with somebody because?we are just visitors,?they know the country and the people in that place.? We go to do a service, but we want to make sure the people on the ground can also carry on the work we start.??For instance, in Jordan, we have worked with the United Nations, with the NGOs, they set-up the clinic infrastructure and would even do the marketing for us before we get there.? They know who the patients are going to be, who the "at-risk" people are. In Jordan, the refugees are either Palestinian or Syrian. In some cases, we go into newly developed camps, and others would have been in the camps for 15 to 20 years.?What happens is, we walk into a school or an auditorium or any location they see fit and is accessible to people.? We set-up a "make-shift" clinic in 6 different stations.? The patient starts in an administration station where they check-in, we take all of their data then proceed them to triage. If the patient got waxed in their ears, they go to the first room management; if they are clear, they go right into a screening. In screening, we do temps and OAEs, and if they pass the test, they are done and can go home.? If they fail, they go into testing where we used the KUDUwave, a piece of equipment that allows us to test and get accurate results as if we are testing the sound group.? It was a real game-changer for us due to the background noise, and poor conditions have always been a challenge in the accuracy of the test results of the KUDUwave, we were feeling not confident with our findings.? After testing, they go into the ear molds, where we use an "instant-mold" to make their ear molds right then and there. Within half an hour, we have their ear molds ready then the patient will go to the fitting station.?We fit all hearing devices, including all up-to-date devices that were donated primarily.? We do real-ear on all of our patients. What I want to stress is, we are not slapping hearing aids on people, we are using the best practices and putting them as if we would fit them in our own clinics. From there, they will go into a counseling session where we have local people who speak the language.? We utilize and train speech pathologists from that country because we feel it is the location where those patients are going to return and have a familiar face.?They learn how to use their hearing aids, clean it, change batteries, and we leave a supply of batteries for them.? When we have a big team, we can see about a hundred patients a day, smaller teams will see half of the patients, and we do three and a half days of clinics wherever we are.??10:01?D' Anne Rudden:? Tell me about one of your favorite mission memories???10:22?Dr. Nimet Adam:? During my first mission to Jordan, we were in a camp, and there was a little girl who came in with her father. She was impacted with wax. She must have been 4 or 5 years old.? Needless to say, it took a while to get the wax out, and she was mad at me. When we were on our way, I went to the other stations and it was time for her fitting, I was in the fitting station.? She took one look at me, started to cry, and didn't want anything to do with me.? I sat her down, calmed her, I saw her kept looking at the corner of the room, and turned around saw the backpack that had the character of Frozen on it.? I turned to her, and I said, "If you sit tight for me and let me put these hearing aids on you and when we are done you can have this backpack".? She sat quietly, and she was a wonderful candidate for hearing aid, she had moderate... When we turned it on, she had the most beautiful hearing smile.? Tears all around, the father was crying and you can see the gratitude in his eyes.? Those are the moments you lived for.?I gave her the backpack, and she was happier with the backpack than the hearing aids.? But, kids are kids no matter where you are in the world.??12:08?D' Anne Rudden:? Have you been able to see her as time goes on? Have you gone back to these countries? I am assuming there's a level of aftercare happening when you come back. You are not only seeing new people but you are seeing some of those same faces. Have you been able to reconnect with her??12:29?Dr. Nimet Adam:? In the refugee camps, we don't always have the luxury.? Thankfully, they are not there forever. Hopefully, she has moved on, and found a safe hall. In some of the other countries, we go to, are more stable communities. We see patients coming back, and we get to reconnect with them and see their progress. It's quite satisfying but, unfortunately, I have not seen that little girl again.?12:58?D' Anne Rudden:? I have no doubt you have changed the trajectory of her life that day. But, I will circle back to a piece of what you were talking about, and that's the "circle of giving." What I have appreciated about your work and Entheos are doing in the world, is not only do you partner with locals on the ground and you are training local people to help serve their own communities, but there is a plan, the plan is not to create the need for you to go back forever. Can you talk about that??13:59?Dr. Nimet Adam:? The model that we follow is a 3 part strategy:The first part is Relief. Where we go into a country and provide relief. We test their hearing, fit them with hearing aids, and we use the time to assess;* What are the resources in the country?* Who are the stakeholders??* Who do we need to partner with???We have a commitment. Wherever we go, we come back for seven years.? The initial part of relief could take a year or 2, depending on the region.The second part is the Development.? After providing some relief and stakeholders know who we are, and they trust us, we can start to create some development through training local nurses, local audiologists, whoever is interested in providing hearing healthcare services.? We start to build infrastructure for the patients to know there is a continuity of care.?The final part is Empowerment.? It is where we start to see the light at the end of the tunnel, where we can potentially leave, and there would be ongoing care continuing.? Every region is at a different stage, and different challenges. Our intention is not just to go and give out hearing aids, but we create the ability for the people on the ground to help their own people.? As far as the "circle of giving" is concerned, it is a model that comes out of our local non-profits.? Entheos is a cooperative, and it has a non-profit arm called "Hearing the Call."? Under it, there are practices that have either opened their own non-profit or project under the "Hearing the Call" arm.? Basically, the way this works is when the patient's come in to get hearing aids, they have to commit to a certain number of hours of community service.? This is to give dignity to the recipient that we are not giving them something for free.? The result of this is two-fold:?A. They start to connect with their community through social interaction, which they need to do with their new hearing aids.?B. But, they also start Giving Back, it's the "pay it forward" model where we want the people to learn to serve and give.??We know through service, it will give you so much more than you are giving others.? The best outcome of this model is when people connect to projects they love and stay, and it becomes their passion, they are doing something with their lives that is purposeful.17:14?D' Anne Rudden:??That is amazing.? I want everyone to stay tuned because I am going to get you to talk about how other people might be able to get involved.??Dr. Nimet Adam, thank you so much for not only your time today but all you are doing to the world to help people hear better.? It is incredible, thank you.?17:47?Dr. Nimet Adam:? Thank you D'Anne, it's my pleasure to be here with you.?END___________________AFTERSHOW17:53?D' Anne Rudden:? We are back on the Hearing Journal Podcast Aftershow with Dr. Nimet Adam.? We are talking about audiology without borders—the ability to have this magical power of giving and how to get involved with global humanitarian efforts.? Also, humanitarian efforts may even be in your own backyard.? Dr. Adam was talking on the first part of the podcast about her involvement in it and what her typical mission day looks like. We chatted about some memories, and the whole time I was thinking to myself, "if I am listening to this, I want to know how I can get involved?" What do I need to do?? You have sparked my curiosity, my interest, and a little about my passion.??Dr. Adam, when you talk about, how do people get involved?? Not just a regular credential with audiologists, but how do regular people get involved? What if a student? Is there a method??19:08??Dr. Nimet Adam:? There are a lot of ways to get involved.? We always need volunteers whether they are audiologists or students. I'll speak about how audiologists can get involved.??We go to 6 different countries, we are always looking for an audiologist that can speak Spanish or Portuguese, Mozambique, Arabic.? It makes a huge difference if you do speak the language on where you are going, but regardless of that, we always have translators, we always need audiologists' support and help. The first thing to do is to contact Entheos, which is . In this way, you can get initial information, get an agenda for trips that we are planning for the year, and we start to talk about which area you want to serve in and get some information about what you can be involved in.? For students, we have what is called "The Student's Initiative," and we already partnered with the Northwestern University of the Pacific.? We got a trip to Guatemala every year for students. From what I have heard, it is an amazing opportunity for students to learn from mentors that have been in the field for a long time.? It is a safe environment to learn their skill set and travel to a part of the world that they might not have seen yet.?It is a great opportunity for students to be able to serve.?For volunteers who do not have any audiology background, we need them as well. There is always work to be done, and we need people to collect data and do data entry, and assist the audiologists. On many trips, there are family members who come along, friends come along, and we need about an equal audiologist volunteer. There is always a need for them.?Also, Entheos is starting to partner with Universities in the areas we're in. Private organizations who are graduating audiologists in the country and Entheos has been partnering with them to start to create placement sites for these audiologists. They fear is that when they graduate, this class of audiology has no jobs and nowhere to send them. Once we get something up and running, we now have a pool of audiologists in the country that can be placed and can start a career, and give them an opportunity and hope for a future.??21:59?D' Anne Rudden: The fear and the stories I have heard in some countries in which they may only have one audiologist for the entire country. If you think about how many people who have hearing loss and the few professionals to serve those people, how do you even make a dent in the need??22:25?Dr. Nimet Adam: It is true.? Human resources are a huge challenge for us in Guatemala, and there was only one audiologist in Zambia. You can only serve for a couple of years if you have a commitment to a country but if somebody lives there that has a community and a family, those people are going to want to serve their people.? This is where we are starting to develop some relationships and also create a training program that can filter and create a pipeline where they can carry on the work for us.?23:11?D' Anne Rudden:? Talk about the regular folks that are able to come with you on some of the missions.? You have one particular regular guy.? Talk about your Marvel Kids Superhero, Braden Baker, who not only has been a dynamo fundraiser, but his trajectory on helping others is incredible. Talk about him because he is becoming famous.?23:54?Dr. Nimet Adam:? He is. Many people know him from the Allen Show, where his dog chewed up his hearing aids, and he started a "Go Fund Me" campaign, ended up raising a lot of money, and donating it to the Oticon Foundation. From there, one of our Entheos audiologists, Dr. Kamal Elliot, connected with him and his family and invited them on a mission trip. They have been on several mission trips with us.? It is amazing to have a kid on our trip, but we had other kids, but children gravitate towards other children. It is inspiring for parents to see this little guy being successful, loquacious, and happy wearing hearing aids - that their child can do and be the same. It has been wonderful from the parents and child's perspective because they can engage with him. He's been great. He loves coming on the mission trips, and the most exciting part that is happening now is he was chosen to have a Marvel Hero. Disney chose him to be able to replicate a Hero. He is inspiring everyone, and we are so proud to put him as a great advocate for Entheos.?25:24?D' Anne Rudden:? Talk about the recent fundraising effort that you had during COVID times with this very special person??25:48?Dr. Nimet Adam: Mandy Harvey, was a finalist on America's Got Talent.? She is a phenomenal singer and a deaf. The way she is able to stay on pitch and keep the melody is wonderful. Mandy partnered with Entheos, has done several concerts with her throughout the country sponsored by local non-profits. Unfortunately, she was scheduled to do one in LA when COVID hit and decided to do an online concert.? They had about 400 or 500 people who got on and saw Mandy and heard her talk about the relationship she has with Entheos. She is such an excellent advocate for what we do and a wonderful representative to show that you can overcome anything. She has followed her passions and fought all the odds. We love having her as one of our Entheos advocates.?27:08?D' Anne Rudden:? There is a method already in place; there is a way for local people like myself to get involved.? What do you see you are doing? Is it sustaining your current programs, or is there something you are looking to expand? What is your vision? What is going on from here??27:41?Dr. Nimet Adam:? We are using this time to create more efficient and fine-tune our policies, our procedures.? We are looking at our data very carefully now. We started with a rudimentary type of process where it is much just paper and pen.? We know we have gone from excel scratch sheets to collect meaningful data and working with researchers in the states to punch the data and to help us with funding grants.?Now that we have tested the water and stakeholders know who we are, we are getting a lot of requests to come and serve in different countries, and we can not meet that demand for many reasons.? We don't want to take on more than we can accomplish. For us, it is a matter of getting some funding that can support the work that we have to do.? Creating a good infrastructure, and developing in a way it can grow and replicate in different areas.? As a young organization, we have already accomplished so much. I am excited about the future because the hard part is done. Now, it is just a matter of doing the work, and to me, it is not scary but exciting.??29:20?D' Anne Rudden: If I am an audiologist or a layperson listening to this I will say, "wow, it would be amazing to go one of these trips, but it's impossible for me," or maybe I am not interested in doing the work but I am interested in supporting the work. How can people give to the non-profit? Can they offer outside of their time and talents??29:55?Dr. Nimet Adam: Yes. They can go to the website or and donate.? There are various ways you can donate to one country if there are lots of ways you can donate hearing aids and use hearing aids for our clinics, or used equipment. All of those are welcome.?In addition, if you have some expertise, whether its data management or anything like it that you feel you would like to donate your time. We love to hear from you because once we come back from our mission trips, everybody goes back to their practices and their daily lives. Everything is done voluntarily, and if you have time to offer, that is also a great pleasure that we would love to have.30:47?D' Anne Rudden: You are saying people can work from home and help in data management even if they are not getting on the plane and going from somewhere far away or maybe helping out in local areas with some of the missions trips going on across the country?31:12?Dr. Nimet Adam: Yes. A lot of the practices have local non-profits and not everybody is able to travel. There is an opportunity to help your community to go to this local non-profit clinics and fit hearing aids, do counsel, and train. So, you don't have to travel internationally just to serve your community.31:37?D' Anne Rudden:? You are an amazing example of someone who has been able to not only build a conscious business but a conscious life, and your selfless service is something to behold and I admire you greatly.??As we close out this final section of our Aftershow, tell me, what do we not know about you?32:24?Dr. Nimet Adam:? What most people don't know about me because I am quiet and a little shy is that I love adventure.? I am so grateful for the opportunity to serve because it not only allowed me to do what I love, and that is audiology, but it allowed me to see the world.? Do adventures like a walk with lions and cheetahs, fly over to the Zambezi river, take a camel ride to Petro, which is an ancient city in Jordan, swim in the dead sea. These are the things I never imagined that I am able to do. My passion for travel, service, and audiology have all come together and made an amazing life. I am so grateful for it.33:23?D' Anne Rudden:? Dr. Adam, thank you for your time. Thank you for your talents and your passion.? You are such an inspiration.?I want to make sure that if people want to get involved with volunteering and giving of their time and talents, certainly they are treasured. They can go to or reach out to any of the Entheos people, and they can be put in touch with what they need.?Thanks for your time and your stories today. I really appreciate you.?34:00??Dr. Nimet Adam:?Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed it.?34:04?END? ................
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